


On Soul Mates

by orphan_account



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: (I mean if you squint), (I mean... kind of), (The canon stuff is vauge so), (Written with TV show canon in mind but mostly book compliant as well), Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Alec Lightwood thinking about Magnus's former Lovers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Husbands, I promise the happy ending is there, Immortal Husbands, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Protective Magnus Bane, Some Fluff, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 20:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20512886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Magnus is his soul mate.Alec knew it the first time they met. Alec was just barley able to stutter through a response to Magnus’s pun before he was able to rush away.But he wasn’t Magnus’s soul mate.This is a whole lot of angst with some bittersweet love and a happy ending.





	1. Alec

Magnus is his soul mate.  
Alec knew it the first time they met. Alec was just barley able to stutter through a response to Magnus’s pun before he was able to rush away.  
_But he wasn’t Magnus’s soul mate._

He’d assumed, at first, that he must be. After all Magnus had flirted and wooed him and been very patient with him.  
Magnus was attracted to him. Magnus liked him, but that didn’t make Alec his soul mate.

***

Alec, eventually broached the topic, one night when they were out on the balcony.  
He’d waited so long, content that Magnus was his soul mate, worried more about Valentine and their relationship and a bunch of other things. But, well… they hadn’t talked about it. They’d said I love you and not talked about it yet.  
Alec was entirely too awkward to be bringing up this conversation.  
He turns a little, pressing his back into the railing and taking Magnus’s hand to tug him into Alec’s embrace.  
“You know…” Alec starts off slowly, “We’ve never talked about soul mates.”  
Magnus huffs, “I hate the concept.”  
And, Alec is not expecting that.  
“I—what?”  
“That there’s one right person for you, that the world breaks into Technicolor when you meet them and fades to grey when they leave? I hope thats not true.”  
Alec gulps.  
Magnus smiles sadly, “You believe in soul mates, then?”  
“There’s records of it…”  
“Ah, well, I suppose other people do, but I don’t expect I have one.” Magnus pecks him on the cheek, “But if you meet your soul mate I won’t begrudge you for leaving.”  
Alec shakes his head. Inside he’s dying just a little.  
“There’s no one I want more.” Alec says, it’s the truth, just not all of it.

Magnus pulls him in for a kiss and Alec lets himself set it aside for now.  
Later, Alec is curled up in Magnus’s arms he drags the idea back out and turns it over in his head till he understands.  
Magnus is immortal, he’s been in love countless times. There have been others like Alec before, and when Alec is gone there will be more. Magnus will move on and, when Alec really stops to consider the alternative, he’s happy that Magnus won’t be trapped in a gray world when he dies.  
Magnus is it for Alec, his one and only.  
It’s okay that he’s not Magnus’s first, that he won’t be Magnus’s last. That he’s just one in a long line of lovers.  
It’s hard to swallow, but Alec wants Magnus to be happy, and that is the only way.  
His heart cracks a little, but he turns over in Magnus’s arms and tells himself it’s just a crack. That his heart is still beating, still whole and sound and ultimately safe in Magnus’s hands.

He’s not Magnus’s soul mate. And that’s okay.  
Alec is Okay.

***

The crack isn’t just a crack. It’s a live thing and some days it tears thorough his heart, other days it heals over.  
He can’t explain it to Magnus. Not really.  
Magnus thinks he’s upset about his immortality. They fight about that. They get to solid ground about Magnus’s immortality and Alec’s mortality but Alec never dares bring up the soul mate thing again. He can’t help that Magnus is his soul mate any more than Magnus can help that Alec isn’t.  
He reminds himself over and over and over that it’s better this way.

He writes a letter though. He can’t tell Magnus, knows it will strain them. Nut, part of Alec wants Magnus to know. He gives a copy to Jace and tells him it’s for Magnus. Tells him that If Alec dies first, to give it to Magnus.  
Alec knows Jace won’t read it.

Jace has his soul mate, and they’re happy together, a perfect pair. So does Isabelle.  
He gives Jace the letter and lets it go. Tries to make sure the days when his heart is healed and full outnumber the days when his heart is split open. He lives in the now when Magnus is his.

It works, for the most part. And it’s easy, for the most part.  
Magnus is an attentive lover, a wonderful partner. He’s all in for Alec and aside from the rare mornings when the box is down, he’s living in the now when Alec is his.  
Alec wonders what of his will end up in the box, but he doesn’t ask and tries not to think about it.

It’s fitting, after all that he’d never be… well… that he’s not Magnus’s soul mate. Just being loved by Magnus is the most special thing in his life. It would be downright greedy to ask for more. Because Magnus always treats Alec like he’s the best person in the room. Calls him gorgeous and loves him and wants a lifetime with him. It’s more than enough.  
He’d spend his whole life looked over, and he’d sought it out eventually. Staying in the shadows hoping no one looked too closely.  
Magnus did. And one morning, while Alec watches the sun rise over Magnus’s body he’s finally content with that.

***

One morning he gets called for a demon a few blocks away. The others are coming, but Alec’s closest. He kisses Magnus awake, tells him he’s going out.  
Magnus mutters something about safety, then falls back asleep.  
Alec brushes a strand of his hair out of his face then grabs his bow on the way out the door.

The others take too long to get there.  
It’s a big hoard, and Alec can’t actually deal with it on his own. He holds them off, keeps them bottled into an alley and bides his time. Kills as many as he can with arrows then gets out his seraph blade and holds his position.  
He’s barley able to stand when they get there. Soaked in his own blood and demon ichor, he thinks several of his bones are broken.  
As soon as he sees Isabelle, Jace, Clary and Simon he collapses.  
Jace tries to help him, But Alec has just enough in him to push him away. He blocks off their bond just enough, tells him he can wait a few more minutes, then pushes Jace after the girls.  
They need him.  
Alec can wait until the demons are dealt with.

He lets his mind slip, back to this morning, others like it. Waking up to Magnus. Lets himself imagine what the morning would have been like if he;d stayed in Magnus’s arms and they’d woken up together a few hours later.  
It’s a wonderful thought to drift off to.  
Magnus, his soul mate, warm and happy curled up in their bed.


	2. Magnus

Magnus doesn’t believe in soul mates. He knows their real, that it’s something other people get. But not Magnus. Because Magnus is immortal and hte entire concept of soul mates is such a mortal thing.  
Magnus thinks that Alec does.  
But Alexander said he doesn’t want anyone else, and if Alexander says Magnus is what he wants, then he’s not lying.  
Alexander is loyal and loving and under his grumpy exterior, a romantic.

Magnus doesn’t have a soul mate, and he’s happy with that.  
Who needs a soul mate when you have Alexander?

***

Magnus vaguely remembers Alexander getting out of bed, telling him there was a hunt. It’s Magnus’s least favorite way to wake up, a cold bed with no Alexander to snuggle into.  
So, he only stays in bed a half hour after Alexander leaves, even though with Alexander he’d probably have stayed in bed another two hours. Three if they got carried away when they woke up.  
Instead of sleeping he drags himself out of bed, makes himself tea and sits on the balcony, looking over the city.

That’s where he is when his phone rings.  
It’s Alexander’s ring tone. He picks the phone up with a smile.  
“Darling!” he purrs, “done already? We have time to salvage our morning.”  
“Magnus!” It’s very not Alexander on the phone. It’s Clary and she sounds frantic.  
Magnus’s heart stops beating for a second, and his entire body tenses up.  
“Biscuit, why are you on Alexander’s phone?”  
“There’s no time, he needs you.”  
“Where?”  
“The institute.”  
Magnus hangs up without saying goodbye and summons a portal.

***

Simon is waiting anxiously at the door for him.  
“They couldn’t spare anyone else,” Simon explains as they rush through the Institute, “they need Clary’s runes and if Jace draws them they’re strongest.”  
He’s babbling. Simon always babbles, but Magnus isn’t going to critique how he deals with stress. He’s single mindly focused on getting to Alexander.

Once there Isabelle, Clary and Jace all make room and Magnus is scanning over Alexander for injuries before anyone can speak.  
“What happened!” Magnus demands.  
“We took too long…” Jace says numbly, “to get there. He tried to hold them off on hos own.”  
Magnus clenches his jaw. The irsatzes have helped, but Alexander has still lost a lot of blood, broken half his ribs, punctured a lung and broken his right arm.  
Magnus doesn’t bother with the arm.  
The arm isn’t threatening his life.  
Instead he focuses slowly on pulling the bone from his lungs and mending them.  
Alexander stops breathing at some point during the process. His skin goes cold but Magnus carries on, trying to get Alexander’s lungs to restart Magically, mending the broken ribs, triple checking his heart for any damage.  
He collapses over Alexander’s still body in sobs.

***

The world is gray. Magnus doesn’t care. He gets a cloth and starts to wipe the blood off Alexander’s face, then the rest of his body. Slowly, carefully. He clutches Alexander’s hand in both of his and refuses to cry after that.  
Alexander once asked what of his would end up in the box. Magnus avoided the question, but the truth is Alexander won’t be in the box. The whole loft if Alexander’s box. Magnus’s entire life is his box.  
Magnus has had many lovers, but Alexander has always been more.  
His lover, his husband, his first in more ways than one. Even if Alexander is not his first in the traditional sense.

Jace slips out at some point, Magnus doesn’t notice until Jace sets a letter down in front of him and gently pulls the others from the room.

The envelope just says “Magnus”, but he knows who it’s from.  
With trembling hands Magnus carefully opens it and reads it through the tears he can’t hold back.

** _Magnus, _ **   
** _The first time I saw you, all the colors in the room pulsed brighter for just a moment. I could feel my heart fill up, and I could barley speak. As much as I tried to avoid it, I knew then that you were it for me. _ **   
** _My one and only love. _ **   
** _My soul mate. _ **   
** _I didn’t want it to strain us that you were my soul mate, when you didn’t believe in having one. But, I thought you deserved to know. That from the moment I saw you, I loved you my whole life through. However long that was. _ **   
** _You know I’m not the best with words. With explaining my feelings. But, I do hope you know that a life without you is something I cannot bare. I know it’s different for you, that you’ve had past lovers and that some day when I’m ash and dust, you’ll have more. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me, how privileged I am, to be one of them. To have you care for me is more than I could ever need._ **

** _All I want is for you to be happy, so please don’t close your heart off again, love. _ **   
** _I just have one request. _ **   
** _If I end up in your box, someday—if you look at my memento—remember mornings together, remember our trips, remember all the moments we fell in love. Remember the fights too, but please don’t remember this moment. Don’t remember my last moment. _ **   
** _That, this, whatever ends us isn’t our love. And, I know it’s selfish, but if you think of me I want it to make you happy._ **

** _—Your Alexander._ **

  
Every single “if” in Alexander’s letter breaks Magnus’s heart a little more. It wreaks him to read of transient Alexander thought he was.  
Magnus should have explained that Alexander’s hold on his heart was permanent, that Alexander would live forever in Magnus’s memory.

Magnus places the letter on the table with up-most care and kisses Alexander’s cheeks, then his eyelids, then his forehead. There’s tears running down Magnus’s cheeks and Magnus wishes he’d been open enough to realize what Alexander was before.  
The world is gray now. And Magnus was so determined that Alexander wasn’t his soul mate that he’s realized too late.  
Alexander was always going to die first, but Magnus thought he’d have more time. Maybe in a few decades (more, as much as he could get), Magnus would be prepared to say goodbye. But not yet. Not now.  
Magnus presses his forehead to Alexander’s and traces an alliance rune into his skin over and over. He traces over it until he can pretend that the pulse in his thumb is Alexander’s pulse. Traces over it until his eyes ache from tears and he’s starting to sway from magic over exertion.  
The body bellow him is not Alexander anymore, just a corpse. But Magnus pours his magic into him regardless. Gives Alexander everything he has. Because he should have done it sooner.  
Should have swallowed his pride and accepted that Alexander was his soul mate.


	3. Alec

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A VERY SHORT CHAPTER

Alec’s face is wet, and he doesn’t understand.   
He tries to raise his hand to wipe it off, but his body won’t move. Then he becomes aware of something pressed into his forehead. Then fingers tracing his skin over and over and over until it’s buzzing and raw.   
He realizes after several minutes of this that there’s magic coursing though his body. That it’s the magic holding him still.   
A second later he recognizes Magnus’s familiar presence. Cant pick up on Magnus’s ragged breathing. Magnus is sobbing, and all Alec wants to do is get up so he can wrap his arms around Magnus.   
He manages to open his eyes, everything is a little blurry, but that’s probably because Magnus’s face is pressed into his and he’s too exhausted to focus.   
Strength bleeds into him slowly, but eventually he can raise his arms to pull Magnus down into a real hug. 


	4. Magnus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also short.   
all the plot was in the first two chapters, the last two are just wrapping it up really.

When Alexander’s arms wrap around Magnus, Magnus freezes. There’s a wild and terrible panic that someone has come to drag Magnus away.  
But the hands soothe him and Magnus jolts back enough to see Alexander staring back up at him. His eyes full of love, and Magnus wonders if he’s died of Magic Exertion.  
Perhaps a fever dream.  
“What’s wrong, love?” Alexander croaks.  
Magnus blinks at him then his hands are flying all over Alexander’s body. Checking for injuries and the last vestiges of his magic check Alexander too. But Alexander is perfect.  
The world roars into color again.  
How did Magnus miss this when they met the first time? (Alexander met him in the loft, but Magnus first saw him in pandemonium, a very bright, color shifting environment… Magnus doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He knows it this time and he’s not going to be a fool anymore.)  
“Alexander, how?” Magnus backs up enough so they can talk, still holding Alexander in a death grip.  
“How what?” Alexander starts checking over his own body, “I remember this morning… I left…”  
Alexander stares off into space for a little while, then he blinks back at Magnus.  
“I got injured?”  
“You died!” Magnus exclaims, “you took a hoard of demons on by yourself then died in my arms while I tried to heal you!”  
Alexander tries to sit up, his body creaks with the effort so he slouches back into the gurney and frowns, “I can’t have died.” Alexander says simply, “I’m sorry I worried you.”  
“You died.” Magnus insists, “If you don’t believe me I’ll call Jace back in, he felt you die.”  
Alexander shakes his head slowly, “but…”  
Magnus sighs, “look… we can figure it out later, I’ve just lived through you dying and I…” Magnus trails off and Alexander’s face goes paler.  
“You… Jace… you got my letter, didn’t you?”  
Magnus nods.  
“Look, Magnus, I’m okay, really,” Alexander sits forward enough to look Magnus directly in the eyes, “I’m happy, and I’ve accepted it, you’re all I want.”  
Magnus cups Alexander’s face and kisses him once, reviling in his slightly chapped lips and the way Alexander’s breath puffs against his skin.  
“I was wrong.” Magnus says, indulgently, “I was a stubborn fool, you’re my soul mate. I lived through you dying once, regardless of how long it was and I have no intention of it happening again.”  
Alexander frowns slightly, “No! I don’t want that. I don’t want to leave you miserable. I’m going to die, someday, and I don’t want it to destroy you.”  
Magnus grips Alexander a little tighter, “I have no intention of letting you die again, it was awful, I don’t know how but I’m going to make it work.”  
“Mag—” Before Alexander can finish the thought, there’s a loud clanging in the hallway. Magnus barely has enough time to pull away from Magnus before Alexander’s siblings are pulling Alexander into a giant group hug.  
“You’re alive!”  
“I felt… how?”  
There's a lot of hugging, a little crying, and everyone is too thrilled that Alexander is alive to reprimand Magnus for not getting them the second it happened.  
When the room has settled down, Clary comes forward and gently traces over the alliance rune.  
Magnus remembers tracing the pattern on Alexander’s skin. But he didn’t use a stele, and the Alliance Rune can’t bring back the dead.  
But it’s burned into Alexander’s skin. Shimmering Blue with Magnus’s Magic.  
“It’s permanent,” Clary announces softly, “I’m not sure how, but it looks like Alec’s tied to Magnus now.”  
“The Alliance Rune can’t…”  
“Maybe it interacts differently with soul mates?” Magnus suggests and this time Alexander doesn’t say differently.

***

When they get back to the loft Magnus doesn’t let go of Alexander for a long time. Magnus summons them some food, and then cleans them with Magic too because he’s too desperate to do anything the Mundane way right now.  
He presses his ear to Alexander’s chest to listen to his heartbeat. He leaves his fingers pressed into his wrist. He kisses him over and over and over just so he can feel Alexander’s breath on his face when he pulls away.  
Alexander’s alive, and with Magnus’s Magic coursing through him, that’s no longer a temporary status. 


End file.
